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Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is an animated anthropomorphic mouse created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in the year 1928. Mickey is, by far, The Walt Disney Company's most famous character and serves as the company's mascot. Mickey rapidly rose to the pinnacle of American culture, becoming the most popular cartoon character in the world and the prime influence of following cartoons. For over 86 years, he has signified The Walt Disney Company, animation, goodwill, fun, laughter, and most of all Walt Disney himself. It was said by Lillian Disney, his wife, that over the years, Mickey and Walt grew together and were mirrors of each other's personality. They both started off mischievous and cheeky, but as they grew older preferred to step out of the spotlight and observe others work their magic. President Jimmy Carter once said: "Mickey Mouse is the symbol of goodwill, surpassing all languages and cultures. When one sees Mickey Mouse, they see happiness." Mickey's 3-circle silhouette serves as the logo for most of Disney's subsidiaries, save for the ones that don't carry the 'Disney' or 'Walt Disney' label. Andy Warhol's portrait from The Art of Mickey Mouse used Warhol's famous pop art techniques on the classic mouse. Mickey is often cited as the world's most famous cartoon character of all time. Appearance Mickey Mouse is estimated as standing 2' 3" (69 cm) and weighing 23 pounds (10 kg). He is topless with a white buttoned red shorts with brown shoes. Personality Mickey's most widely known traits are his wholesomeness and charisma. In contrast to this, Mickey is also known for being exceptionally mischievous; due to his curiosity, optimism, and occasional arrogance, Mickey has a habit of finding himself in a wide array of self-inflicted trouble—sometimes comedically (Mickey's Airplane Kit), sometimes highly consequentially (Epic Mickey). Nevertheless, he is also quick-thinking and crafty and is thusly able to save himself from the varying danger, ending out on top in the end. Because of his small size, he additionally relies on his trickster nature to get the best of his rivals. His craftiness is also put into good use when looking for ways to make life easier for himself, even if he knowingly has to break rules in the process, being somewhat of a schemer in this sense (The Sorcerer's Apprentice, "Stayin' Cool"). As mentioned, Mickey is rather charismatic, and this is prominently displayed in his relationship with his longtime girlfriend, Minnie Mouse. The two are shown to be deeply in love with each other, and as such, Mickey has repeatedly gone to great lengths to both ensure Minnie's happiness, and to impress her (sometimes out of insecurity of losing her, as seen in Mickey Tries to Cook). While he tries his best to avoid danger when possible, Mickey will immediately force himself to become a valiant hero when Minnie is put into danger. When protecting Minnie, Mickey proves himself to be quite skilled in combat, and his previously mentioned craftiness is, again, prominently featured. In turn, Minnie is an avid supporter of Mickey and openly returns his sentiments. Though she finds herself annoyed with Mickey's habit of forgetting special occasions and other important matters (Rent Day, Runaway Brain), she simultaneously serves as Mickey's better half, bringing out the best of him, even after his own flaws create significant mayhem. Despite his mischievousness, Mickey is a reliable leader and is well-respected amongst his peers because of this. A great example of this can be seen in various cartoons in which Mickey stars alongside his best friends, the ill-tempered Donald Duck and exceptionally clumsy Goofy. With his intelligence and wit, he is able to handle issues fairly better than both Donald and Goofy, as his temper and clumsiness are not as distracting for himself as they are for his two comrades. The dynamic shared with Donald and Goofy also brings out two significant, yet greatly differing traits of Mickey's. Donald occasionally holds resentment towards Mickey, being envious of his success. He is, additionally, intolerable of Mickey's overwhelming kindness at times. Because of this, the two can sometimes clash, bringing out a more aggressive and no-nonsense side to Mickey ("Timon and Pumbaa", "No Service"). The two are nevertheless loyal to one another, claiming to be a mutual pair of best friends. With Goofy, Mickey tends to act as a passive friend, as he cares a great deal for Goofy's happiness, and therefore puts up with a fair amount of nonsense for Goof's sake ("Potatoland", "Goofy's Grandma"). This is also an example of Mickey's nobility. Above all, Mickey's aggression is most notably displayed when dealing with his two most frequent adversaries, Pete and Mortimer Mouse. When dealing with Pete, despite being afraid of him at times, Mickey can be somewhat relentless and almost uncaring, as he typically sees Pete as a "heartless villain" ("Pete's One-Man Show", "Pete's Christmas Caper"). The borderline hatred is mutual, however, as Pete has continuously gone out of his way to torment Mickey, and can be excessively brutal in his attempts to defeat the mouse (Building a Building, "Tapped Out"). Mickey's relationship with Mortimer is built on a rivalry for Minnie's affections. The polar opposite of Mickey, Mortimer is sleazy and demeaning, bringing out the worse in Mickey with his berating, and manipulative comments ("Mickey's Rival Returns"). Along with Pete, Mortimer is one of the few characters that Mickey has inflicted (in a slapstick tone) rough, physically harm upon onscreen. While not out of his control, therefore making it a rarity, Mickey has a temper that has been unleashed, on occasion, after being pushed to a certain edge ("Daisy's Road Trip"). Because of his humbleness and laid-back nature, however, Mickey is often remorseful after letting his anger get the best of him, and does all that he can to remedy affected feelings, if any (Mickey's Dog-Gone Christmas). In spite of being an anthropomorphic mouse, Mickey has the tendencies to act with his animal nature, including the fact that, being a mouse, he loves cheese. In the television series House of Mouse, Mickey, being a mouse, is made fun of when he is shown to exercise on a hamster wheel and drink from a rodent drinking bottle (like the ones found in a hamster cage). These particular facts seem to only exist in the House of Mouse and haven't been shown again, proving to have been used for brief gags only. History Mickey was originally created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an earlier star in the 20s and 30s created by the Disney studio. Oswald had been created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks for Charles Mintz of Universal Studios. In fact, Mickey closely resembled Oswald in his early appearances. However, Disney received an unpleasant lesson when he asked Mintz for a larger budget for his popular Oswald series: in reply, Mintz fired Disney and Iwerks and taken all of Disney's artists to draw Oswald , to which Mintz and Universal owned the rights. From that point on, Disney made sure that he owned all rights to the characters produced by his company. Oswald would eventually return to the Disney fold in 2006 as part of a trade between NBC Universal and Disney, with NBC getting the contract of sports announcer Al Michaels as a compensation. In order for Walt and his older brother and business partner Roy to keep their company active, new characters had to be created to star in their subsequent animated shorts. One day, during a train ride, Walt desperately wanted to come up with a money-making character to replace the one he lost, Oswald, whom he loved dearly. He had visions of a mouse in the back of his head (he had previously made silent cartoon shorts with animated mice). He wanted to name his new creation Mortimer Mouse, but his wife Lillian Marie Bounds thought the name was too pretentious, so she suggested he change it to Mickey Mouse, which he did. (The name Mortimer would later be used for a character who became a new rival for Mickey in one cartoon.) It has been suggested that Walt Disney was influenced by an actual mouse that he almost tamed by feeding it crumbs on his desk at the Laugh-O-Gram Studio. Mickey and Minnie Mouse (Mickey's flapper girlfriend) debuted in the cartoon short Plane Crazy, first released on May 15, 1928. The short was co-directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Iwerks was also the main animator for this short and reportedly spent six weeks working on it. Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were credited for assisting him; these two had already signed their contracts with Charles Mintz, but he was still in the process of forming his new studio and so for the time being they were still employed by Disney. This short would be the last they animated under this somewhat awkward situation. The plot of Plane Crazy was fairly simple. Mickey is apparently trying to become an aviator in emulation of Charles Lindbergh. After building his own aircraft, he proceeds to ask Minnie to join him for its first flight, during which he repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempts to kiss her, eventually resorting to force. Minnie then parachutes out of the plane. While distracted by her, Mickey loses control of the plane. This becomes the beginning of an out-of-control flight that results in a series of humorous situations and eventually in the crash-landing of the aircraft. A non-anthropomorphic cow that briefly becomes a passenger in the aircraft is believed to be Caroline Cow making her debut. Plane Crazy apparently failed to impress audiences, and to add insult to injury, Walt could not find a distributor. Though understandably disappointed, Walt went on to produce a second Mickey short: The Gallopin' Gaucho. It would not be until Mickey's third, probably most famous, and first sound cartoon Steamboat Willie, that Mickey began to gain the popularity that he has today. The short's original release date - November 18, 1928 - was later declared to be Mickey's official birthday by archivist Dave Smith in 1978. The twelfth and final Mickey short released during the year was Jungle Rhythm, first released on November 15, 1929. Mickey is seen in a safari somewhere in Africa. He rides on an elephant and is armed with a shotgun. But the latter proves to be problematic. Soon after, Mickey finds himself standing in between of a lion and a bear. Mickey proceeds to play music to calm them down. During the rest of the short, various jungle animals dance to Mickey's tunes. The tunes vary from the previously mentioned "Yankee Doodle" and "Turkey in the Straw" to Robert Burns' "Auld Lang Syne" (1788), Johann Strauss' "The Blue Danube" (An der schönen, blauen Donau - 1867) and Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii's "Aloha `Oe" - 1878. This was the first Mickey short to be released during the Great Depression. Mickey's efforts as an entertainer to the jungle can be seen as a representative of a function often credited to him, also to provide relatively cheap but much-needed entertainment to the audiences of the period of Jimmy Durante. In this era of short cartoons, Mickey was portrayed as a rascally mouse living in a barn-like environment, accompanied by his aforementioned girlfriend Minnie Mouse, as well as his friends Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar among others. He was also regularly faced against the monstrous Peg-Leg Pete, who made his Mickey Mouse debut in Gallopin' Gaucho and would go on to become a recurring antagonist for Mickey, commonly and iconically featured as his arch-nemesis. During this time period, Mickey and the gang were introduced to Technicolor, something that Walt had taken a gamble on for the Silly Symphonies in 1932. Walt didn't want to take a gamble on his most famous creation, the Mickey Mouse series. In 1935, however, Walt felt that Mickey was ready for color. The first of the cartoons being The Band Concert, a short centering Mickey's frustration through a public band concert, with such nuisances such as Donald Duck and a sudden tornado causing havoc throughout the performance, with Mickey trying to maintain composure the entire time. The feedback and profits rocketed so Walt never used Black and White again, not even for his television series (which was filmed in color). During this time, Mickey's body structure was changed and was given a new look. His round body was replaced by a pear-shaped looking one and his head was changed so his nose was closer to his body. His ears were turned from round to oval and his eyes became more detailed (the pupils smaller, the eye itself outlined instead of partially open). In his earliest cartoons, Mickey was often mischievous and the cartoons sometimes used outhouse humor. As the series became more popular, Disney decided to change his best-known character into a well-meaning everyman and creating mischief was thereafter left to other characters. Around this time, Mickey began to star in a series of comedy shorts alongside Donald Duck and Goofy. Some of the most well-known shorts featuring Mickey, Donald and Goofy together as a trio include Clock Cleaners (1937), Lonesome Ghosts (1937), and Mickey's Trailer (1938). During these years, Mickey became a character that audiences could sympathize with. During that time, many mothers were upset at how Mickey's constant rudeness and bullying was starting to rub off on their own children. Walt then turned Mickey into a kinder, hero-type character as opposed to the more anti-hero character that he was in the early years. He became an everyman who could do anything (and usually did). He was turned into a character that people could laugh with, rather than laugh at. Unfortunately, this did not come without repercussions. With his mischievous personality having been reduced, stripping a great deal of his comedy and charm, Mickey's cartoons declined in popularity. Not only this, his everyman nature made it difficult for animators to create gags for shorts, forcing them to remove Mickey from a majority of the upcoming "Mickey, Donald, and Goofy" entries, beginning with the release of 1938's Polar Trappers. To remedy this issue, Disney began development on an elaborate short titled The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which would serve as a comeback for Mickey. Fred Moore, dubbed the "Mickey expert" by Walt, would be brought on to redesign Mickey to allow a broader range of emotion in the character animation. Eventually, however, the short would become attached to a larger project - a full-length feature film - titled Fantasia, which would become Disney's third animated film, following the critical successes of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 and Pinocchio in 1940. Mickey's role in the short, as the eponymous apprentice, would become one of the most recognizable roles of his career. After Fantasia, World War II had taken hold of the studio, with many artists and animators being drafted, thus reducing company resources. The studio forcibly put focus on war-related, propaganda cartoons starring most of the headlining characters, with the exception of Mickey. While all of the other characters went off to war, Walt refused to draft Mickey. He continued to appear in a number of shorts throughout the decade, however; one of which included Lend a Paw, which became the only Mickey Mouse cartoon to date to win an Academy Award, having won for Best Animated Short of 1941. In 1947, Mickey made his second appearance in the Disney animated features canon in Fun and Fancy Free, starring in the "Mickey and the Beanstalk" segment. After the war was over, Disney shows a great advancement in the animation style. This is probably due to the fact that many of the old animators had died overseas and Disney had to find new ones. These cartoons led the way to the "modernized" style of animation that Disney used from the mid-1950's to the later 1960's. In these years (which were Mickey's final theatrical years) Mickey was given eyebrows in his redesign. Eyebrows will continue to be seen on Mickey's face until the late 1980's and rarely in the early 1990's. In his most recent appearances, Mickey's eyebrows have since been removed. There were 56 more color cartoons in the original Mickey Mouse theatrical series. The last of which was The Simple Things in 1953, which focused on Mickey and Pluto's day at the beach. Afterward, Mickey's series would receive a thirty-year hiatus. In 1929, Disney created the original Mickey Mouse Club for fans of his character and cartoons, which later formed the basis for a popular 1950's television show (with follow-ups of the same name debuting in 1977 and 1989). On November 18, 1978, in honor of his 50th anniversary, Mickey became the first animated character to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The star is located at 6925 Hollywood Blvd. In 1983, Mickey appeared in his first theatrical short since 1953's The Simple Things: Mickey's Christmas Carol, where he played the role of Bob Cratchit, opposite Scrooge McDuck's Ebenezer Scrooge. Seven years later in 1990, he played the starring (duo) role in The Prince and the Pauper, which was screened in front of The Rescuers Down Under. In 1994, four of Mickey's cartoons were included in the book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, which listed the greatest cartoons of all time as voted by members of the animation field. The films were The Band Concert (#3), Steamboat Willie (#13), Brave Little Tailor (#26) and Clock Cleaners (#27). In 1995, Mickey starred in a new theatrical cartoon short titled Runaway Brain, where Mickey's brain and body get switched with that of a monster who falls in love with Minnie named Julius. This short was originally screened in front of A Kid in King Arthur's Court. In the early 2000's, Mickey and his friends received a major comeback with the premiere of the Mickey Mouse Works series of shorts in 1999, shepherd by Roy E. Disney (son of Roy O. Disney and nephew of Walt). Developed in the style of Disney's golden age of animation, the show was significant in solidifying the aesthetics and environment of the Mickey Mouse franchise; its setting (modeled after Mickey's Toontown in Disneyland) would be featured as the quintessential home of Mickey and his supporting cast in all forms of appearances including films (such as 2005's Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas), video games (such as 2010's Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep), television (such as 2013's Mickey Mouse), and a wide array of marketing material. Mickey served as the Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year's Day of 2005 as part of the kickoff of the "Happiest Homecoming on Earth", celebrating Disneyland's 50th Anniversary. In 2009, Mickey reappeared in balloon form in the famous Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, dressed as the captain in Tugboat Mickey. That same year, Disney Channel premiered a short series known as Have a Laugh!, which is a collection of remastered classic shorts starring Mickey and friends. Also in 2009, Disney began to rebrand the Mickey Mouse character again by putting less emphasis on his pleasant, cheerful side and reintroducing the more mischievous and adventurous sides of his personality, beginning with the video game Epic Mickey. In 2010, three dozen Mickey statues were used to promote the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which was played in Anaheim, California, adorned with insignias of the teams. In 2011, Mickey and Minnie were given the honors as Grand Marshals of the 20th Annual Festival of Lights Parade in Chicago. In 2012, Mickey and the gang starred in the online animated short Electric Holiday. In June 2013, Mickey and his friends were rebranded, once more, with the premiere of a new series of stylized shorts (appropriately titled Mickey Mouse) headed by animator Paul Rudish. The shorts were designed in the style of Mickey's earliest appearances of the late 20's and 1930's and emphasized the mouse's comedic potential and human flaws while retaining his likeability and wholesomeness. With millions of views on YouTube, the series garnered major critical acclaim, and became a multi-Emmy and Annie-award winner, being praised for its writing, music, and animation. Paul Rudish's take on Mickey has since been featured in the Disney theme parks, as well as the contemporary mascot of Disney Television Animation. Later that year, on November 27th, an all-new short starring Mickey and the gang titled Get A Horse! was shown in theaters in front of Frozen. The short featured archival recordings of Walt Disney as the voice of Mickey and provided the latter with his tenth Academy-Award nomination. 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